The Foreign Service Journal, November 2004

internal problems were not consid- ered to be the business of the interna- tional community. That has changed, as Kofi Annan has consistently point- ed out. The way a government treats its citizens has become a concern of other nations, possibly justifying inter- vention. Acquisition of weapons of mass destruction has become a threat to international peace and security, also justifying intervention in some cases. These new reasons for the imposition of peacekeeping or peace- enforcing forces have joined the more familiar causes resulting from the breakdown of order within a country. Who is to deal with these types of conflicts? The legitimacy provided by the formal approval of the internation- al community, or some large and rele- vant portion of it, is one reason why the U.N., or a surrogate, will have to take charge. Another reason is the need to use some neutral or impartial force in order to avoid exacerbating international rivalries. And a third rea- son is that the big powers may not wish to get involved directly, lest the conflict distract them from other per- ceived threats. Darfur is a recent case in point. The U.N.’s key role in internal con- flicts is directly connected to a matter much discussed these days in relation to the reconstitution of the Iraqi state. This is the assistance that the U.N. can provide in building the infrastruc- ture of civil society. And it concerns not only elections, but also, and equal- ly importantly, the creation of democ- ratic institutions, like an impartial judiciary system, a police force, and free and open media. Even the skep- tical Bush administration has belated- ly acknowledged that the U.N. has a special competence in these matters that needs to be brought into play. These types of intrastate conflicts and reconstruction efforts, therefore, will be a key preoccupation of the U.N. Security Council in the future. The U.N. may still be busy with mon- itoring cease-fires in conflicts between states, as in the past, but this may increasingly become the task of regional organizations, which also deserve a far more prominent role in the Security Council itself. It is easier to see NATO, for example, helping to maintain a settlement of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict than the U.N. A NATO or E.U. seat on the Security Council might someday help to pre- empt the horse-trading that will oth- erwise accompany an inevitable revi- sion of the post-World War II compo- sition of the Permanent Five. So, too, would the participation of other regional security organizations along- side their member governments. Connecting the Dots This is the context in which to con- sider the future of the Security Council and the rifts among its mem- bers. Have those rifts damaged beyond repair the strength of the Council? No, unity can be restored, but only upon a basis reflecting today’s realities. Was the immediate advan- tage gained in Iraq worth the price that was paid in Europe? Not unless Americans and Europeans can work out some modus vivendi that will per- mit them to cooperate throughout the Middle East. In short, while Iraq was the proximate cause of transatlantic disarray, it can now be the common cause that knits the alliance together again while restoring legitimacy to the United Nations. What about terrorism? Europeans have suffered from terrorism for many years. But they have not endured the terrible catastrophe of having nearly 3,000 of their citizens killed at one blow in one of their largest cities in peacetime. America, so seemingly invulnerable, suffered a sudden shock that exceeded by far any one attack that a single European state suffered in the past generation. That is understood intellectually by Europeans but it has not been absorbed by them. It is only slowly becoming a basic factor in their understanding of what motivates Americans these days. What about America’s special voca- tion for spreading freedom and democracy around the world, a God- given mission proclaimed repeatedly by President Bush? Does it really divide Europeans from Americans? The Kantian idea of creating peace through spreading democratic values is what Europeans are accused of fol- lowing, in contrast to the Americans’ supposed deeper understanding that Hobbes was right when he wrote of “a war of all against all.” Of course Europeans know that the anarchy of the nation-state system ends in a war of all against all; the reason that the Europeans created the Common Market, which evolved into the European Union we see today, is that they understood from bitter experi- ence that wars result from unfettered national rivalry. They tried to over- come that systemic fault, and have succeeded to a considerable degree. What the Bush administration claims to seek in the Middle East, through its “road map” and the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative, sounds very much like the democratic peace that Europeans have created in the west- ern part of their continent. It is a wor- 52 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 4 Current divisive tendencies within the Euroatlantic community are preventing a unified response to international security problems.